For years, various efforts have gone into recycling polymers. For instance, carpet is a product often made of nylon with a latex backing. Separating the nylon from the latex after tufting and backing is not a particularly easy process.
Used carpet is often a waste product. Prior endeavors provided a process of shaving the nylon from the backing to reprocess the nylon. Unfortunately, this process leaves a nylon/latex carcass which still goes to the landfill usually after shaving nylon to be reprocessed. Furthermore, this reprocessing step of a nylon usually leads to a reprocessed nylon having a tensile strength of roughly 5,000 to 6,000 psi which is significantly inferior to the 12,000 psi that virgin nylon would otherwise provide due to impurities recycled with the nylon waste.
Other efforts have been made to reprocess PET bottles, often utilized for personal sized water bottles and other plastic bottles. The current methodology cuts bottles into strips or “flakes.” Unfortunately, the strips can stick together since they are generally planar sandwiching impurities therebetween. If two of these planar pieces stick together, any impurity therebetween will often need to be eliminated by further processing or will add to the impurity value of the attempt at reclamation of the polymer. There is not believed to be a satisfactory method of addressing impurities currently available in the market.
It is believed that other polymer recycling techniques have other downfalls.
Accordingly, there is a perceived need for an improved likely recycling method and apparatus in an attempt to provide acceptable recycled polymers for reuse to various industries. Some uses may include compound polymers with the recycled material. Other uses may use the recycled materials in other uses, possibly to provide recycled plastics which may have benefits over other materials and some improved properties which can be marketed over new products.